Blood Lust (15 page)

She looked up, her face red from her distress. “I’m insane.”

“What?”

She held a thick old-fashioned book in her hand.

“My journal. One of the last entries I wrote something about Dayne being a sorcerer and Greta being a werecat. But that stuff isn’t real. If I get my memory back, will I be crazy again?”

Anthony let out a tired sigh. He didn’t need this on top of the tournament. When he’d searched her mind to erase it the night she’d tried to help Greta leave the city, why hadn’t he thought of something like a journal entry? She’d known about their world for several days before he’d gotten to her. He should have searched her apartment for any remaining evidence, but he hadn’t. And now the mess was larger.

“I don’t feel crazy right now. So how can I be crazy with my memory but not crazy without it?”

Anthony stared hard at her and lifted the interior monologue running through her head. She was second-guessing her crazy status because earlier she’d thought he was a vampire. He sifted through her thoughts about his kitchen and lack of mirror to the point she’d dismissed it all. He moved to sit on the bed and wrapped an arm around her, considering his options.

He could kill her, but then he had Dayne and Greta to contend with if she went missing. And as simple as he wanted that solution to be, he couldn’t seriously entertain the idea of a world without Charlotte in it. He could erase her memory again, but that might do greater damage.

Who was he kidding? She hadn’t lost her memory through natural means. It wasn’t just going to come back on its own. If such a thing could happen, his entire kind would be endangered.

There was no known way to return a memory. So he was back to killing her. Perhaps he could convince Dayne and Greta it had been a mercy killing, or that Linus had gotten to her. They’d known Linus was a risk. It was the entire reason Anthony had brought her to his penthouse.

She was practically already dead. He felt as if he’d taken more than her memory. Except for the outburst at the store, this wasn’t the sassy smart-assed Charlotte he adored. He couldn’t restore her. His fangs itched inside his gums, begging him to finish her, to not leave a mistake sitting around, something that would fit in Linus’s twisted menagerie. Or something Anthony might keep himself out of weakness.

Her head was on his shoulder, her tears wetting his shirt. She didn’t know he weighed the value of her life as his fingers stroked absently through her hair. He thought of all the ways he could do it. He could drain her quickly or he could snap her neck and never have to hear the thoughts of betrayal go through her mind again, thoughts he’d suffered through the first time he’d drunk from her.

He could just give her to Linus.

As soon as the idea entered his mind, it was met with such revulsion he thought he might vomit. Why did she affect him this way? What made her so different that he couldn’t kill her and make easy work of a complicated mess that had arrived at the most inopportune time?

“Shhhhh.” He had no other choice. “You’re not crazy.”

She looked up. “But . . . I wrote those things . . . and earlier . . . I thought you were a . . . Oh my god, you won’t believe how crazy I am. The thought actually entered my head that you might be a vampire.”

“I made a mistake.”

The strange admission stopped her crying for a moment as Anthony got up and went to the closet. He pulled out a large mirror and took down the Botticelli print. “Close your eyes.”

Charlotte looked at him, hesitating for a moment. Then she did what he asked, and he exchanged the print for the mirror.

“Keep them closed.” He took her hands and led her to face the reflective surface, holding her back firmly against his chest. “Open them.”

Anthony wrapped his arms around her, and immediately Charlee felt the peaceful calmness she was beginning to associate with him. Safety. Comfort.

The feeling was short-lived. Upon opening her eyes, her first instinct was to scream. Anthony’s hand came over her mouth to silence her, and she bit down. Still, he held tight.

His eyes met hers in the mirror. “Do not do that again.”

She nodded and whimpered against his hand. Something dark and twisted, black with silver waves, rippled over his skin. His face was demonic; his eyes glowed red. His teeth were wolf-like. She saw the wicked-looking claws resting against her cheek but only felt the softness of his fingertips.

She turned in the tiny amount of space he’d given her to look up into his face. When she did, she saw Anthony. Beautiful face, crystal blue eyes, long blond hair. She whirled back to face the mirror and was greeted again with the demonic visage. If she looked hard, she could still see Anthony. But the demon overpowered his reflection, making it clear he was more monster than man.

“If I remove my hand will you promise not to scream?”

She nodded, and he took his hand away from her mouth. “Which one is real?”

“Both. The human face you see is more or less what I looked like as a human. Just a bit more perfect. The other is what joined me when I was turned. People see a flicker of it before a bite. My eyes glow and my fangs come out, but only the mirror reveals the whole picture.”

She felt suffocated, as if there was no air left in the room to breathe. “Why do you keep a mirror in the closet?”

He held her gaze with his. “Because I used to love the look on your face right now.” He bent his head while Charlee watched his reflection and trailed his tongue lightly over her throat. He murmured against her skin, “You’ve got to calm down. You smell so fucking good.”

She closed her eyes and leaned against his shoulder. Her thoughts flitted back and forth like a schizophrenic butterfly torn between terror she might only live a few more minutes and an odd certainty that wasn’t the case. The hand that had been over her mouth moved to stroke through her hair.

“You’re lucky I’m not hungry.”

Charlee blushed as he stepped away from her. She’d stood in the arms of a predator without the will to even scream once he’d caressed her throat with his tongue. It seemed an unnecessary added perk. He already had too many advantages. She swayed on her feet, but before she could collapse, a chair was slipped beneath her.

Anthony turned the chair to face him and made himself comfortable on the bed.

“You’re the reason I can’t remember my life.” The words came out dull and flat when she said them, a statement of fact, as if she’d mentioned a bill she’d gotten in the mail or a bank statement. “Can you fix it?”

Anthony looked down at his hands. “No.”

“So that’s it. It’s just gone then. It’s like I was born yesterday.” She tried to think what that meant. No hope of remembering the past, only being able to move forward. A clean slate if she’d been bad, but a waste if she hadn’t been. Somehow she doubted there was much she wanted wiped away.

“Yes. That’s right.”

She’d known the answer before he said it, but still the loss washed over her. Family, friends, memories she’d never know. Did she have parents? Brothers? Sisters? Where had she grown up? What was her childhood like?

Greta could help put some of the pieces together and lead her to others who could fill in the remaining gaps, but none of it would ever belong to her. Not really. It could be anybody’s story and it wouldn’t make any difference.

“I’m sorry.”

Charlee looked up. He did look truly remorseful. She couldn’t resist stealing a glance at the mirror for a second opinion, but the demon’s eyes revealed much the same as Anthony’s human face. Guilt and regret.

“Why?” If vampires erased memories, surely they did better and more localized jobs of it. No one else seemed to be running around with amnesia. Not that she’d had much of a chance to see the city, but Dayne and Greta had at least behaved as if her circumstances were peculiar.

“What you said about the last pages of your journal about Greta . . . A few days after that, you tried to help her escape town. You failed, and I was called in to erase your memories of the preternatural world. Later Dayne asked me to siphon drugs from Greta’s body. Her blood affected me, twisted my desires.” He looked away as if unable to stand the scrutiny and judgment behind her gaze.

“I came to your house. I terrified you and drank from you, and afterward I wiped your memory. I couldn’t stand for you to remember me as a monster when you’d never feared me before. I took too much.”

Charlee stared at her hands, letting his words settle around her. “I don’t know what to say. Why did it matter to you? I’m sure I’m not the first person to be scared of you.” She couldn’t imagine anyone who wouldn’t find Anthony terrifying.

He shrugged. “I saw you several days a week at the bookstore. I liked your spirit. You made me feel like a person, and I missed that feeling. You smell and taste so good when you’re afraid, like the finest wine. But at the same time I hate it from you. I don’t want you afraid of me.”

“So you’re not going to kill me?”

“It would make things easier.”

Charlee’s lip trembled, and she fought to stop herself from crying. She still wasn’t out of the woods with him. She flinched when he reached toward her, but he only rested his hand on her knee, sending a sense of calm through her. It wasn’t real, but she’d take it.

“No, I won’t kill you.”

“Then I can go?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Dayne and Greta won’t let you keep me here against my will.”

“Is that why they let me take you? They know what I am.”

At least the mystery of why Greta didn’t want her to go with Doctor Burgess was solved. “You’re not a doctor are you?”

He shook his head. “I’m somewhat relieved you know. I have too many things to worry about to have to hide my nature from you as well.”

“If I’m allowed to know, then why take my memory after I helped Greta?”

“You’re not allowed to know. But since you’re my guest at the moment, it doesn’t much matter. I’ve taken responsibility for you until after the tournament, at which time I’ll erase your memory again and send you on your way.”

Anger gathered from somewhere deep inside her at his flippant plan. “Well, I’m glad you’ve got it all worked out.”

She stomped past him to one of her suitcases and retrieved a swimsuit. The only place she knew to go to get away from him that he would allow her to go was the rooftop. And she wasn’t altogether sure he’d allow that.

She was afraid he’d follow her, but after five minutes with no sign of him, she felt safe to change clothes.

Charlee dove into the water and began swimming laps, making smooth strokes, even as her thoughts grew more turbulent. Keeping her prisoner until after the tournament was he?

He must not be too put out about her amnesia if he planned to take her memory again. Then just what? Deposit her on the doorstep of her house without any clue of what she should do next? If Dayne was a sorcerer why couldn’t he just magic her memory back?

What bothered her most was that she’d had feelings for the vampire. Her journal had made that painfully clear. She dove under the water as if by doing so she could escape the words she’d read in her own handwriting, words she couldn’t now erase from her mind.

Anthony was at the bookstore today. He’s such an ass, but he’s an ass in that way I like. I swear to god, telling him off is like foreplay. The crush caught me off guard but now I think it’s developing into something more. Is that possible when we’ve never kissed?

Or maybe I’m reading too many romance novels. Maybe I need to get out more. I keep thinking he’s going to come in and sweep me off my feet.

He looks at me like I’m a main course. So why hasn’t he made a move yet? Am I just imagining all this? He makes me feel light-headed. I haven’t felt this way since I was fifteen with that stupid high school boy that we so aren’t going to talk about here.

I shouldn’t have told Greta, though. She said, and I quote: “Anthony is not a good guy. Trust me, you don’t want to go there.”

A freaking vampire. Yeah, that pretty much qualified as not a good guy. She broke the surface of the water in time to hear the metal door clang against the outside brick. Anthony emerged wearing a pair of black swim trunks. His face was tight.

Charlee looked up, afraid, but intent on masking it with annoyance. “Did no one ever introduce you to the broad spectrum of wardrobe color choices?”

“That’s my girl.” He smirked and got into the pool.

She tried to tamp down the flutter in her stomach at hearing him reference her as my girl. “Did you come to check on me? Did you think I’d jumped off?”

He smiled. “We didn’t finish our conversation.”

“It seemed pretty finished to me. ‘You’re my prisoner until after the tournament, cue evil laughter.’ What tournament?” Now hardly seemed the time for sports.

“That would be the unfinished part. A tournament will be held in a few days which will decide the coven leader for the next century.”

“Huh?”

He grimaced. “King of the vampires. In this country, at least. Competitors are arriving in town as we speak. My most dangerous opponent would take you if he knew about you.”

“And why exactly is that?”

“Because you’re a mistake, and he collects them. He doesn’t have anyone with full amnesia in his collection. He’d use you to get to me.”